I hated gin. I detested it. Actually when you stand up so firmly against something the biggest problem is feeling like trying again just to see if time made you change your opinion, if you are ready to go back. It never happens for me with rocket, banana or anything sweet in a yogurth. I just can’t stand it, yet I gave all of them a chance every two or three years. Simply, I hate bananas’ texture though I could eat a ton of dried bananas; as for rocket, I can’t even smell it if you are eating it, it smells like butterbur and noone will never make me believe it’s not a stupid trend which slowly entrenched like only bad weed can; as for yogurth I love it but if it’s sweet I just feel like vomiting.
As to gin, it was sort of an epiphany; I carefully avoided it for years because I knew I detested it. I vaguely remembered bubble bath and moth repellent and I avoided it like black death. Then, someday I decided to give this beverage a second chance. It was a revelation. After all it must be said I always loved resinous and pungent scents; there was really no reason – apart from my terrible mental block – to deny the benefit of the doubt to gin as it was for bananas, rocket and sweet yogurt.That’s how the journey began, among tastes and reads, discovering that there’s a parallel universe made of infinite shades of flavours and that if you like you can always try making your own gin even without a still The so called “compound gin” ain’t but a hydro-alcoholic macerate of herbs and though distillation allows control over cuts and following tweaks, anyway compounding lets you achieve excellent results provided that you have very good ingredients and time to carry out plenty of samples.
I started with small 100 cc samples and variable percentages of juniper and the other botanicals, changing infusion times as well. Batch #5 ain’t that bad. Now I know for sure that the dream of a completely homemade Salty Dog is just a few steps away. * The picture shows the botanicals I’m playing with: juniper, cardamom, fennel, aniseed, lemon peel, sage, black pepper and coriander